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Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Long, Dark Night of Long-Running Series
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mdo7
 Posts: 8230 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I hate to say this but, I really missed the day when anime used to be 25-26 episodes long (I've been in the fandom since 2006, although I was watching anime since maybe mid 90's as a kid back then). I understand the logistic and the labor that is taking the toll on the animators in Japan on why anime went from 26 episodes straight (past) to now breaking into 13 episode a season (present/current). If you've been in the anime fandom long enough and if you're a retro anime enthusiast/nerd like me, then you'll notice how several anime can get up to 35-40 (or 50+) episode a season (well it depend on the retro anime title). But yeah, time has changed when it comes to anime. Oh and I want to address this regarding what you said on the article: 
Yeah, that's the same vibe I'm getting and I've also taken notice for current anime too sadly. We get shorter episode run, and now we also get and shoddy animation along with it too. I mean, how is this even possible? I mean I can understand the schedule and crunch time, and if the crunch time and schedule is causing bad shoddy animation like what we're seeing, then the culture has to changed because the animators working on animation are burned out, stressed out, and under pressure. If this (the bad animation) continue, the animation is going to look as bad as Gundoh Musashi (anybody remember that anime?). Also I don't want to see an anime's animation as bad and on par as Lost Universe when it was first broadcasted back in 1998 (although the reason for that was different, but I imagine a badly animated anime that can have bad animation like this): 
You see what I mean. Yep, that is my biggest concern when it comes to bad animation in anime if they continue to animate badly or just shoddy animation because of that, and I say that as someone who's been in the fandom for 20+ years. Before I end this, I'm going to make an unpopular opinion about well this one anime film I've watched: Did anybody watched A Silent Voice? OK, I think that should've been a 24-26 episode anime TV series rather then a film IMO. I just started to read the manga, and to be honest, some other fan of the manga thought A Silent Voice would've worked better as a TV series rather than a anime movie/film. And I'll end my opinion and this post right here. Last edited by mdo7 on Thu Nov 06, 2025 11:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DogasusBackpack
 Posts: 1 Location: Japan |
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Pokémon breaks up its show into arcs and adds subtitles to its “seasons” a lot more than it did in the past, but it’s still very much an old school yearlong series that airs 48-ish episodes a year. That’s never changed. |
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EmeraldSaucer
 Posts: 944 |
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Another reason why the Netflix model is bad: it's apparently tricked people into thinking that's just how the Pokemon anime must be distributed elsewhere |
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mdo7
Posts: 8230 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Is that really how it is, I think this might be Pokemon Company USA that might be doing this, and not Netflix. Even to this day, I'm baffled why PCUSA haven't thought simulcasting the latest episode, and let alone allowed the uncut subtitled version given that other children anime are allowed and have already done this. Pokemon seems to be the outlier when it comes to not making the uncut subtitled version available, or even allowing the latest episode to be simulcast (which something a lot of anime are doing these days). |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2560 Location: Online Terminal |
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Time to go back to one of my theories that isn't anti-labor (because I think there is anti-labor behind this, but I digress) in that I think the demand for anime outstrips the ability to supply it. Any time a show goes an extra 13 episodes, that's one less spot for a new series that can do just as well if not better. The problem is that even the hottest shows fade from the public consciousness once they're off the air and the longer they're gone, the less excitement for the comeback. So most production companies are stuck in this loop of having to kneecap what could have been The Next One Piece, because their backlog is full of The Next One Pieces, and the end result will be no title will truly transcend beyond very very good.
The actual One Piece may not suffer that much because of all the other side projects that allow it to stay relevant, but I have to imagine the main reason the pivot happened is new One Piece wasn't pulling in an amount of money to justify its continuing existence. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 868 |
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Oh it'll almost definitely help, I'd say. One Piece is, in a way, kinda like Pokemon in that it's grown far beyond its roots into becoming a a whole media machine. While the anime's gone, you'll have the live-action, the shortened version, maybe an out-of-canon movie, and all sorts of other things to take time. But most importantly, there's the manga. You mentioned the risk of sequels/new seasons taking too long, and usually that's why a lot of anime originals are sadly limited to being one-season wonders. But any show based on a manga (especially a manga still in publication (and especially especially a manga where the story isn't yet over)) is bound to keep the hype engine going, maybe not at full heat for all the anime-only fans, but warm enough to where it's never gonna end up being some situation where tons of fans just move on and find a new show. There is something mentioned in this article that I want to rail against and it's the split-cour season. It's a model that I think was popularized by the rise of streaming and I hate it. Not just because it makes "seasons" seem shorter but because it feels artificial. Now I don't know how it works in terms of anime, maybe the animators/studios are actually still working on it and I'm a fool, but I know the vast majority of the time when western shows do a shorter season, "Season 2" is usually done and loaded in the chamber, but they stretch it out to two "seasons" to keep the hype train going/stay in the news cycle longer (and from a more cynical POV, for streamers to make sure you have to stay subscribed longer than the length of a free trial). Like I said, maybe I'm dead wrong and the split in a split cour is akin to an actual season break where writers/artists/etc get time to recharge, but it's a practice I just hate in general. No matter whether my theory is right or wrong, I'd rather wait longer and get an actual 26 episode season of a show rather than have two mini-seasons over an arbitrary length of time. ...that said I do not want animators worked to the bone, so if split cours actually help end that kind of workplace practice, it's a bitter pill I will swallow with a smile on my face. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 20003 |
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Not a fan of the Dark Keiwa arc in Geats, I take it?
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hannyhan
Posts: 1 |
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Adv193
Posts: 200 |
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With the way things had been going lately with one chapter adapted per episode, too many flashback episodes and even a six month delay this was bound to happen especially with some of Oda's poor health issues delaying the release of the manga chapters that was making the pacing issues more complicated.
Besides things like filler arcs are becoming more outdated these days with the anime series that are manga adaptions. |
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MiniMarps
 Posts: 187 |
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While I don't think running continuously is sustainable in the modern age, I am generally wary of how rigid the anime industry currently is in its strict adherence to the 12-13 episode season format. Because not every manga is made to be adapted to that specific length! Imagine if things were the way they are now back when One Piece debuted. You know where One Piece was in Episode 13? They were about halfway through the way through the Syrup Village arc. Frankly, I'm not sure One Piece's first season would've garnered enough attention to warrant a second season if it would've ended halfway through the Syrup Village arc.
I still think a lot about Urara Meirocho, the manga and its anime adaptation. The manga was genuinely one of my favorite manga of the 2010s, but it wasn't written to cater to the single-cour format. JC Staff's 2017 12-episode adaptation of it was over before it even really reached the main meat of the story. I still wonder whether it could have become Kirara's next big hit (that they were sorely missing around this time) if it would've just been given a little bit longer leash. My favorite ongoing manga right now is Idol X Idol (published on Comic Fuz, from Shotaro Tokuno of New Game fame). Tl;dr, it's a competition series a la Survivor or American Idol, wherein the contestants participate in various tasks, with one eliminated at the end of each round. The writing is brilliant, but it takes its time. If it was given a one-cour anime, I reckon they'd have enough time to cover maybe the first two rounds, if they really rushed it, and that just wouldn't make for very compelling television at all. Perhaps the best manga I have read in the 2020s will probably never get an anime adaptation, and if it did it would probably be a failure, just because of the industry's increasingly inflexible scheduling practices. I'm not asking for crunch. Again, I believe the age of continuous runs has come and gone, and the industry will ultimately be better for it. But as an old fan of One Piece, and as a current fan of manga with similarly patient writing, I'm also not fully on-board with the one-cour-at-a-time dogma that dominates the current anime landscape. |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4663 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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On one hand, I'm glad that the longest new anime series I've watched since the combined 41 episodes and a movie of K-On! over a decade and a half ago is Non Non Biyori which, combining all three seasons and the OVAs, comes out to roughly 39 episodes (the first OVA was only about two-thirds the length of a normal TV episode, hence the "roughly") and a rather short movie.
On the other hand, that's mainly because Non Non Biyori is about the only series I've enjoyed from the past dozen years or so that got more than one season. Some of my other favourite 2010s anime such as WataMote, Flying Witch, and Gabriel DropOut all have enough manga source material for at least two more twelve or thirteen episodes late night "cour" but I know, if the second seasons for those haven't happened by now, they're never happening (at least not without a reboot, which I could maybe see happening with WataMote). Even in the 1990s anime club days of my youth, I never really got into any shows that ran longer than about the length of (classic) Sailor Moon (200 episodes plus three movies and one or two short-form episodes, and even then, I was mainly only into the first three seasons; admittedly, I haven't seen that much of Stars) and the plurality of shows that I was into in the 1990s didn't last much longer than about Kimagure Orange Road (48 episodes plus a few OVAs and a couple of movies). Once a show gets into the triple digit episode counts, it's usually already outlived its welcome for me. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4858 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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this is because of Nintendo of America's mindset to maintain their so call "family friendly" reputation when it comes to their IPs in the western markets! i mean, its why their in that copyright infringement with that Chinese company who created palworld & their not the only ones with this mindset. konami had this when it came to the YGO anime so much that they partly had a part in bankrupting 4kids (which took place during the end of YGOGX and the start of YGO5D) and creating its offshoot studio 4KMedia (which did YGO ZEXAL & ARCV) just to prevent other broadcasting studios (like NAS & TV Tokyo) of obtaining full autonomy over the rights for the anime! |
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mdo7
Posts: 8230 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Yeah, go tell that to the Pokemon fans that were a bit baffled and disturbed by some Pokedex entries about certain Pokemon (my favorite is Drampa because that species can commit arson and burn down a bully house that bullied their master), and certain thing in the Pokemon games that might be mature/adult stuff like for example: this one and this one. You still think this is 100% kid-friendly, doesn't look a bit like it if you put semi-disturbing (the Pokedex entries) and sexual innuendo content (like mentioning bikini and pokeballs in dialogue) in a kid-friendly game. One correction: Palworld is created by a Japanese company, not a Chinese company!!! Who told you (or give you information) the game was Chinese (when it was a Japanese company all along)? But back on topic, if you got kids that are watching Pokemon anime and at the same time are able to watch a simulcast of let say One Piece, Naruto, Dragonball, or My Hero Academia with subtitle on Crunchyroll. Then the same kids are ready to watch a simulcast uncut subtitled Pokemon episodes instead of waiting for months or year(s) for the latest episode to get an English-language release. I mean we're living in a world where anime can get simulcast including kid-friendly anime that may get simulcasted in the US in the near future (ie: PreCure series). Kid anime do get picked up by CR, and that makes it easier for parents that have CR subscription to have kids anime catalog available for them. |
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Nipasu
 Posts: 180 |
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But are the kids' shows CR (and other services) licensing truly for kids, though? Of course these shows are still for children regardless, but I question of the subbed0only releases of certain shows mean they're actually being aimed at older audiences who are more used to reading subtitles---especially since, typically, anime aimed at kids get dubbed. |
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Divineking
 Posts: 1316 |
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If series like Precure or Digimon were being picked up by Crunchyroll for streaming with kids in mind, there would be dubs for them (or at least timely ones in Digimon's case) the fact that they aren't means that these are being picked up purely to get views from the handful of older anime fans who are into those franchises, and any thought of actually trying to put them in front of kids in the west is basically non-existent. (Which as one of those older fans being catered to, I think is a shame. Kids should be able to enjoy these kids shows and the lack of dubs limits the amount of them that will latch on to these shows pretty dramatically) |
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